Navigant Energy: Solar and Wind Should Be Competitive with Natural Gas "in the near future"

The cost of renewables is steadily catching up to the cost of natural gas and will soon beat it.

According to a panel of researchers at the Windpower 2014 conference, continued improvements in wind and solar technologies are making them a threat to natural gas

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Even with tax credit concerns, the installed system prices for solar and wind are expected to continue dropping, while the price of natural gas is expected to go beyond $5.00 per MMBtu. “The gap is closing,” [Navigant Energy Associate Director Shalom] Goffri said. Solar and wind should be competitive with at least some natural gas plants “in the near future.”

Of course, the entrenched, politically powerful fossil fuel folks will attempt to forestall this as long as possible, through a variety of means (lobbying, campaign contributions, fossil-fuel-funded attacks on clean energy and climate science, etc.), but inevitably the economics of clean energy are going to win out. The question is, will investors start ditching fossil fuels before those assets become "stranded" and their value plummets towards zero, or will they stick with oil, gas and coal until the bitter end?

Even on purely economic grounds, the answer to that question seems obvious: switch to clean energy as soon as possible. Add in environmental considerations, such as the ones outlined in the major new report on climate change impacts in the United States released yesterday, and the answer is even more glaringly obvious. No wonder why Stanford University just announced it will "pure coal investments from its $18.7 billion endowment." They're certainly no dummies at Stanford. Now it's time for everyone else to follow their lead.